The WMG Files
by weebee
Summary: Formerly Mallet Impact. A series of small oneshots related to the most common WMGs TVTropes has to offer.
1. Mallet Impact

Mallet Impact, by Weebee.

Disclaimer: I do not own Ranma or NGE. If I did, I would have made EVA 00 light blue and red, for little apparent reason. See? It's blue… or orange, so it's not owned by me!

Summary: Many fanfics act as though a certain character is the center of the universe. Well, in this one, someone really is.

Start.

She lay in bed, her eyes visibly twitching beneath their lids as she was evidently in the midst of a nightmare, and her blankets bunched together by one side, clutched in white-knuckled fists. This went on for several minutes, before her eyes flew open, and she gazed up into the ceiling with an almost unseeing expression, the images of the dream still burned almost indelibly onto her eyes.

"What…" Akane Tendo wispered, releasing her grip on the blankets, and bringing her right hand up to her forehead to rub at her brow. This had been happening for the past five days, ever since the events in Jusendo, and she was unsure why. She knew that now that she had had the dream, she would not be able to get to sleep again, and slowly swung her legs out of bed, pushing herself to her feet and grabbing her yellow gi top to slip over her underwear as she pulled her bedroom door open, starting down the hall on bare, quiet feet.

Quickly she made her way downstairs, and out into the coolness of the spring night, settling on a rock at the edge of the Koi pond and looking up into the stars. She knew that Ranma did this on occasion, though in his overly showy fashion, he liked to do it by flipping up out of his bedroom window and onto the roof. She could likely do so as well, but she would make more noise doing it, and could see the sky perfectly well from where she was now.

The blue-black haired girl spent almost a half an hour tracing outlines of constellations before turning her vision back downwards, to where one hand was casually stirring the water in the pond, forming interlocking patterns of wavelets. Strangely though, as one of those wave patterns went out, it seemed to form into a group of hexagons, one overlaying the other. She blinked, and the optical illusion was gone, but she couldn't help but be uneasy at the sight of it.

She still remembered what had happened at Phoenix Mountain, as Ranma had fought for her life against Saffron, and she had somehow… helped. She could still remember the orange flash that had parted the fireball around the two of them, and the feeling it had evoked. She was pretty sure that was what had caused the dreams that she'd been having since, the dreams that she could never remember for long when she woke, but that always left her with a deep, gnawing sense of dread.

"What's happening to me?" She muttered, the relaxing air of the night almost entirely shattered by her thoughts, as the nervous and angry young woman punched into the water beside her, watching as it rippled again, this time more violently. Just for a moment, as it settled down, she thought that she saw a face there that was not her own, but rather that of a boy, perhaps fourteen years old, scared and panicked.

She snorted and shook her head. The boy looked like Gosunkugi, sort of, save for the fact that he didn't have bags under his eyes, and his hair was brown rather than black. She tried to shake his image out of her mind, but it wouldn't go, and immediately resurfaced when she thought about the dreams.

She sighed explosively. Sitting out here and thinking, she had thought, would relax her and tire her enough that she could go back to sleep. Of course, she should have known better, but the last few times she hadn't had strange visions of hexagonal water ripples and wimpy looking boys.

Standing, she headed for the house, searching for something else to occupy herself with.

HR.

"Hey Tomboy, yer lookin extra like a raccoon today," Ranma's irritating voice snapped across Akane's awareness, as she sat at the living room table, finishing off one of her Sailor Moon collections. She'd gone through most of the series by this point, along with Rurouni Kenshin and Ranma's Yu Yu Hakusho books, but still didn't feel tired.

"Shut up, Baka," she snapped, looking away from the page to see the short redhead grinning at her and toweling her hair dry from where she'd apparently just come out of the Koi pond.

"Okay, okay," the other martial artist said, holding up her hands. She knew that the blue-black haired girl had been very quiet recently, and wasn't sure why. "Seriously, though, ya look real tired. You all right?"

"I'm fine," the Tendo girl grumbled, laying her manga aside to notice that Kasumi had somehow been working around her while she was lost in it, setting out the morning meal. She looked down at the rice, pickles and miso before her, and picked up the bowl to take a sip before grimacing. This got genuinely confused looks from pretty much everyone around the table.

"Akane-chan, is something wrong with your food?" The older brown haired girl asked, tilting her head to the side inquisitively.

"No Kasumi, it's fine," Akane quickly reassured. "I'm just really not hungry this morning. I think I'm going to go out for my morning jog, okay?"

"Of course," Kasumi responded, though her usual smile was slightly dim as her sister stood and headed to the front door. Once she was out of earshot, Nabiki turned to Ranma and glared at her.

"All right, what did you do, Saotome?" She demanded, impatiently.

The redhead in question immediately threw up her hands in defense. "Hey! I haven't even said much to her in the last week! I dunno what's wrong with her!"

The middle Tendo looked unconvinced. "I don't know, sometimes you're pretty stupid about what hurts people and what doesn't," she observed.

The martial artist shook her head again, as she reached across and grabbed Akane's food, accepting a kettle of hot water with the other hand. "Look, Nabiki, I've been studyin, trainin or goin to school for the past little while." She snorted. "Hell, Shampoo 'n Ukyo've been avoiding me recently, so she can't be pissed about them."

The middle Tendo snorted, but left the subject alone, as Ranma upended a kettle of hot water over her head, becoming male and beginning to work on the food before him.

As Ranma finished off Akane's food and settled the bowl down, the room rapidly began to distort, for only a fraction of a second, though no one seemed to notice. "I guess I gotta get to school," the black haired boy griped, scooping up his school case from the floor next to him and starting for the entrance.

"Wait, what?" Nabiki asked, and cursed loudly as she realized that her desire to question Ranma about Akane had kept her home late. Quickly grabbing her own case, she charged out after the boy, leaving Kasumi alone with the two parents.

The eldest Tendo sighed softly, though her face wore a fond smile as she began to clean up the dishes. As she walked past the Shogi board, she noticed that her father and Mr. Saotome were whispering something about joining the schools together, but decided to leave them to it.

HR.

Akane sprinted down the street, headed to her home, and feeling mildly annoyed, but also rather good. In spite of the fact that she hadn't gotten much sleep, she was feeling energetic, and had apparently done well on a test that had been given shortly after she and Ranma had returned from Phoenix Mountain. Judging from the look on Ranma's face, he hadn't done quite as well, and the detention he'd gotten from Hinako-sensei sort of substantiated that theory, but she shook that off.

Ranma usually failed tests, making up for it with enough well done assignments to squeak by. At least, that was how he had done it last year, and he seemed to be doing pretty well at it this year as well. The strange thing, though, was that Ukyo wasn't present, and she hadn't seen Nabiki since lunch. She was a little worried about that, especially given how her older sister seemed to be so worried about her during the morning, but she was sure that the other girl would be all right.

As she swung in through the gates of the Dojo, the youngest Tendo sister noted her father standing at the door, looking very expectant and happy. "Akane-chan, I'm so glad you're back!" He exclaimed. "I need to speak to you about something very important."

The blue-black haired girl looked confused, but nodded, and the older man rapidly ushered her into the house and up to her bedroom.

HR.

Forty-five minutes later, Akane wanted to cry. It had seemed so simple before. Her father had explained that he and Genma had arranged a wedding for her and Ranma, and she had been about to automatically object when he'd played his trump card. He'd told her about the Nannichuan that had been sent from China, as a wedding present he'd said, and that he would give it to Ranma after the ceremony was completed.

After that, things seemed to be a lot easier to accept. She was taking the engagement in order to get the water for Ranma. She knew that it was important to him to get the water, and he had, after all, saved her life mere days before.

Plus, even if she didn't love the jerk, he'd said that he loved her on Phoenix Mountain, when he'd revived her. She'd heard it, and perhaps, one day, she could learn to love him.

But now, things were completely ruined. Ranma had come up demanding to know what was going on just before the wedding would have started, and though he'd told her that she was beautiful in her wedding dress, he'd also flatly denied that he'd ever said he loved her.

That had only been the start, however, as she'd told him about the Jusenkyo water, and he'd charged down after it, with her quickly following, only to find that the Dojo had already begun its slow, inexorable transformation into a warzone. As she watched, numbly, from the front of the isle where the priest had once been, in her tattered and burnt white wedding dress, Genma and Ryoga battled to take possession of the Nannichuan, and she wondered why the dark haired martial artist wanted it so much.

Nearby, Ranma was fighting off Kodachi and Shampoo, while a ranting Ukyo was being restrained by a very reluctant looking Konatsu. Ranma was losing ground to the Amazon and the maniac, but only because he didn't really want to go all out on the purple haired girl for some reason. Unfortunately, as Ryoga and Genma let out a cry of shocked surprise and his head turned to see what was going on, he noted the Nannichuan, and immediately kicked the Amazon hard in the side of the head, sending her to the floor.

Akane had known it, that the only reason he went through with this wedding was for the spring water, though as he leapt for the flying cask, she noted something odd. His trajectory was off, carrying him not directly at the water, but rather towards her own position. Her eyes widened as she realized what that could mean, but she was stopped from taking any action in that knowledge by the shock as Mousse's chain enclosed on Ranma's foot, clearly trying to keep him from the cure that the duck cursed boy wanted as well.

By the time the youngest Tendo regained her faculties, it was too late, and the cask had detonated due to its impact against the ground, sending a wave of magically cursed water over her body.

As the tingle washed over her, however, she noted in numb shock that she was shrinking, rather than growing, as she thought she would as a man. Looking down at her arms, she noted that they were thin, scrawny looking things, and as the dress draped on her shoulders, she charged through one of the holes in the Dojo's wall, straight to the Koi pond, where she saw the same reflection she had seen the night before, of the hollow-cheeked, scraggly haired fourteen year old boy, though now he had a white dress hanging off of him by one shoulder.

"N… No," she said, and her voice was only a little lower than it normally was. "This isn't me," she shook her head, panic creeping up in her heart for a reason she couldn't name. "This isn't me!" She screamed this last, and her voice broke, as though she were still going through puberty.

"…Akane?" Ranma's voice came from behind, and she turned to see that he was walking towards her, followed by Ryoga, Mousse, and the non-combatants.

"No!" She yelled, and the world flared orange, the light obliterating everything, only to replace it with blackness.

HR.

He sat on the floor, kneeling with his head hung forward, in a world that seemed entirely dark other than his little spot lit area. He had checked, and he was definitely a he, despite how small and frail he now seemed. Everyone, everything, else was gone, swept away in the blackness, and he didn't know where they went. He'd called out for his siblings, his father, even his mother a few times, but no one had come, and it had been hours.

He shook his head, irritated with himself. Something bad had happened, there was no doubt about that, but he was Akane Tendo, and he hadn't sat down and accepted anything in his life. "Yeah, and it always got you in trouble," he muttered to himself.

All those times he, then she, had charged into things, it had made things so much worse... but that wasn't entirely true, was it? She'd helped a lot during the battle with Saffron, he reassured himself, recalling Ranma's near capture by Saffron's ascension egg.

Right now, he wasn't sure if Ranma even knew where he was, and had to do something. Hauling himself to his feet, he grimaced as he looked down at the wedding dress he was still wearing, which definitely didn't fit anymore. Not wanting to ruin it, he tied it up as best he could so that it wouldn't get in the way, and started walking out into the darkness, occasionally throwing a look back to the spotlight where he'd started.

About ten minutes later, as the spotlight was dwindling in the distance behind him almost to the point where it was just a single dot, Akane was jerked out of his revery as another light snapped on above him. "Took you long enough to get here, third child," a condescending female voice said from right beside him.

He whirled instinctively, kicking into midair as quickly as he could, only to find a small hand clasped around his leg. "Now third child, is that the way you treat your fiancee?" the voice asked, and then with a bit of a teasing lilt to it continued, "Nice panties, by the way."

Akane pulled his leg out of the girl's grasp and set it down, only then noticing the redhead who now stood before him, wearing Ranma's traditional red and black clothes, though her hair was long and loose, held behind her by two red clasps that tickled a memory in the back of his brain.

"Asuka, he's undoubtedly confused," a smoother, calmer male voice said from behind Akane, and the brown haired, newly transformed boy took several seconds to turn and notice male Ranma, though his hair was dull blue-grey, and his eyes a strange sort of red.

Turning to look behind him, the youngest Tendo noticed that a normal Ranma was standing there, though his eyes seemed to be staring vacantly into space.

"Ranma?" He asked, looking between the three again. "What's happening here?"

"Idiot," the redhead huffed. "Do I look like Ranma to you?"

"Actually," the grey haired man started, before getting a harsh glare.

"I'm Asuka. You know, your fellow pilot? Got my EVA and myself torn to pieces because you were too much of a wuss?" She looked down for a moment, glaring at the floor, before meeting Akane's eyes. "Don't tell me you've hidden yourself so well that you don't know me, stupid!"

"I... what?" The brown haired boy stuttered, backing away from the three, and as he did so, several more spotlights flickered on in a giant ring around him, revealing more familiar faces.

One was Kasumi, standing with her arms crossed and a kind smile behind a woman with similar brown hair in a different style, and a similar smile. Next to her was Nabiki, behind a tall blonde woman in a lab coat, and Ryoga, behind a brown haired man with a cocky grin and a cigarette in his mouth. "Shinji?" The blonde woman asked, followed by the man with the brown hair. The next light to come on stopped the youngest Tendo's backpeddling cold.

It was Soun Tendo, with a similar vacant look in his eyes to Ranma, though before him was a man with mutch shorter hair, no mustache and a pair of tinted glasses that held a cold, calculating expression behind them. "My son," he observed, but the words were full of disgust.

"What's happening here?" Akane choked out, as the panic rose higher in his throat.

The grey haired Ranma spoke. "You initiated third impact, Shinji. Afterwards, as the key, you were able to shape the world as you saw fit, though the choice you made, some here find... unfortunate."

"Damned right it was unfortunate!" The redhead snarled. "What's the idea with turning me into a boy and sticking me with fruity boy for fifteen years?"

Nearby, the man with the glasses nodded. "Indeed. I am glad that Yui is returned to me, though as my daughter isn't the way I would have had it." He looked back at Soun. "And such a spineless worm." As he spoke, Soun began to fade from view slightly, his image wavering.

"You tried to make me weak enough that I couldn't dominate you anymore, and then you follow my instructions as best you are able out of love?" He snorted. "I'm sad to call you my son."

"I'm nobody's son!" Akane yelled. "I'm a girl!" As he cried that, another spotlight lit, and this one held herself, in her Furinkan school uniform, standing and holding her bento in front of her. There was no one in front of this duplicate Akane, though as he made eye contact, light brown eyes melding with dark brown, memories suddenly began to rush into his brain.

He crumpled to the ground, gripping the remnants of the wedding dress as they morphed into a male school uniform from a school that was not Furinkan, and a slideshow of horror began to run through his brain on fast forward. The second impact, his childhood, his first fight in the EVA, the destruction of the third angel, then the next, and the one after that.

Finally, he lay panting, his throat feeling raw from screaming, as he remembered crushing Kaoru in Unit 01's hand, the final battle with Seele, Asuka's torn up EVA, and then, mercifully, nothing more.

"That..." he panted, and then looked up at Asuka and Kaoru, and then to his mother, Dr. Akagi, Kaji, and his father. "... why did I imagine a world like that? I... I... I don't understand. Why would I want to be a girl, and the fighting, and..."

"It's obvious," Gendo answered. "Despite how difficult some of it was, it was the world you wanted." He snorted. "Your father loved you, and you almost had a mother."

"You had family," Dr. Akagi said, looking less disgusted than Gendo, more understanding. "And friends."

"Why you were a girl was pretty obvious too," Asuka said, with a superior smirk. "Whenever someone hurts us, whenever they do wrong, it's always the boy who has to appologize, at least that's how you thought of it." She shrugged.

"But now, it is time to awake from this dream, and bring the instrumentality," Kaoru said evenly.

"That's right, it's time to go, Shinji-chan," The brown haired boy turned rapidly to see Misato, standing in front of Genma and Nodoka Saotome.

Shinji nodded. Everyone wanted him to go, everyone wanted things to continue. He wasn't sure what that continuance would be, but he knew that he had had his time, and though he wasn't sure why it had manifested how it had, he accepted that. He let his eyes slowly begin to close, when a new voice cracked through the group.

"No!" It was Akane's voice, her voice as a girl, clear, and angry, and loud, bouncing around the black void. Everyone snapped around to face it, or at least everyone who was inclined to move, and they saw the Akane in the spotlight beginning to stride forward out of it. "You're talking about destroying my life!" She complained.

"Your life never existed, you were just a fragment of Shinji's mind," Gendo said, dismissively, which only seemed to get Akane angrier.

"I don't know what this third impact thing is, but I know it means we'll disappear. Me, my friends, my family..." She looked down, and whispered, "Ranma."

"But I... all of it was a dream," Shinji objected. "I... They're waiting for me."

"It was a dream, a good one," Akane objected, harshly. "Compared to this!" She gestured around. "Most of the world's population dead, giant alien-fighting robots piloted by fourteen year olds because they're the only ones who can do it, this is horrible! It's not the reality I want!"

"You can't run away from reality, third child," Asuka said, snearing at the blue-black haired girl. "It's always been your problem, running away."

"I've never run away!" Akane objected, angrily.

"Yes you have," it was Shinji now, speaking quietly enough that everyone had a hard time hearing him. "I tried to run physically, but I was really good at running mentally," he laughed mirthlessly. "Seeing your life... I see that now."

Akane stepped back, almost as though she had been slapped, but quickly recovered, her shock turning to anger. "I'm still not going to let you destroy my world, even if I've got to beat you to a pulp to stop it," she resolved, stepping forward.

Within moments, Asuka and Kaoru were in front of Akane, blocking her way. "Shinji, she's just a part of your mind, you can stop her, but until you get your head out of your ass long enough to figure that out, we're going to do it," Asuka said, with a smirk. Kaoru nodded, and began concentrating to bring his overpowering AT field to bare, when suddenly a splitting pain went through both of their heads, and Ranma was standing in front of them.

The pigtailed martial artist took in the two people who were before him, one of whom was glowing with power, and frowned. "I dunno what you guys're doing, but you ain't gunna touch Akane," he vowed.

Kaoru shook his head. "I understand your actions, Saotome-san, but I'm afraid we need to stop her," he said, raising one arm and causing a wall of force to go barreling towards the newcomer.

Ranma seemed to see the oncoming wave, leaping into the air until he had cleared it, and firing a chi ball that caused Kaoru to lose his concentration, causing it to dissipate only inches from Akane's original position.

Nearby, the other Neriman residents were beginning to move as well, as if Ranma had set an example for them, and their reactions were all different.

Kasumi stared at the brown haired woman before her for a moment, walking up next to her and observing the situation. "Hmm, Ranma-kun and Akane are with some new friends again?" She asked. "I wonder what happened to the wedding?"

Next to her, Yui Ikari turned, gave her a look, and then turned back to the conflict in the middle of the room.

Nabiki and Ritsuko, on the other hand, were busy feeling out each other's informational defenses, though the former had gleaned quite a lot from the latter already, due to the fact that she was much less trusting. At the moment, she didn't much like what she was hearing, but didn't see much way to influence it.

Next to them, Ryoga was asking directions from a bemused Kaji, though every time he tried to walk out of the spotlight, he ended up coming back in the other side, somehow without seeming to move. Quite frankly, the double-agent was getting dizzy.

Gendo had just cold-cocked Soun out of sheer disgust, and was wishing that he had a gun with which to shoot that pigtailed nuisance, or the girl who he saw was making her way around the battle towards Shinji.

The only ones who hadn't moved were Genma and Nodoka, but Misato was studying them up and down, as if in some deep state of appraisal. "They have a family," she noted. She knew that it shouldn't be a good thing, two people who basically embodied herself, split in such a way that even her best qualities had been twisted to be somewhat warped, and her worst qualities magnified, but she also remembered, from their lives, the look that their child, and even the Tendos, had given them. A look of love, even if sometimes annoyed or even angry. A look of complete and total trust.

Turning back to the battlefield, the Katsuragi woman made a decision. "Akane, Ranma!" She called, and the blue-black haired girl turned to her. "Kick their asses!" As Shinji looked at her in shock, and Asuka looked away for just long enough that Ranma managed to take her out of the fight in spite of Kaoru's interference, she shook her head.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled, "But they're so much better off..."

HR.

He looked up as he heard a footstep nearby, to see that Akane had finally made her way over to him, and she had her hands set in a ready fighting position. "It won't work, you know," he said, still somewhat hurt from Misato's previous call. "You're just a part of me, you can't hurt me."

Akane shrugged. "They're doing a pretty good job," she observed, gesturing to where Ranma and Kaoru were fighting, Asuka making her way back to the fight.

"They're fighting to distract each other," Shinji replied.

"Well, I can't just lay back and let you un-wish my whole life," Akane snapped.

"I can't stop it," Shinji objected. "The first time I thought I could, Asuka died, and then I tried again and it made you. Third impact has to happen... then maybe we can stop hurting each other." He whispered, softly.

"Stop hurting each other?" Akane asked, confused. "Is that what you think it'll do? Well, have you ever thought that never seeing each other again could hurt worse?"

He looked up. "What?"

"We both lost our mothers," She gestured to where Yui was standing next to Kasumi. "How much more did it hurt when they weren't here?"

"But I..." Shinji tried, and Akane shook her head.

"You aren't even sure what you want, are you?" She demanded, angrily. "Well, if I'm a part of you, then I'm the only part that knows what it wants. I want my family back! I want to be in Nerima again, even with the destroyed Dojo, and my jerk of a Fiancé. I don't know what the whole third impact thing is, but I know what I had, and I liked it."

"Even Ranma?" Shinji asked, tentatively.

Akane's mouth opened and closed a few times, and then she nodded. "Even Ranma," she confessed, slowly.

Shinji gulped, and looked around to see that Ranma, Kaoru and Asuka were at a stalemate. Kaoru was behind a shield, and whenever Ranma tried to bring enough power to it to break it, Asuka would interrupt him, taking advantage of the fact that he couldn't really hurt her to take blows that were normally lethal.

Misato was just staring across at him and Akane, and as his eyes met hers, she nodded. His father was glaring at him, murder in his eyes, though Nabiki and Dr. Akagi had switched places, Nabiki sitting in front, while the doctor stared into the distance. Kasumi and his mother were actually smiling and talking amiably, while Ryoga continued to wander around, Kaji sitting in the middle of his spotlight and talking to him as well.

The male EVA pilot nodded. "I don't know if it's a real decision, or if I'm just too afraid to start third impact..." He looked down at his hands, which were shaking at his sides, and then back to Akane. "but... Akane, be happy, please."

The blue-black haired girl smiled, and abruptly the world was engulfed in orange light again.

HR.

A pulse seemed to wash through Nerima on a cool day in early spring, one that changed some people completely, and left others almost entirely alone. Some of them knew what had caused it, but most knew nothing, just living their lives as though nothing had happened.

At the Tendo Dojo, Akane stared into a mirror, seeing the face of Shinji Ikari staring back. Eyes were closed firmly, and then opened. The face that was seen then was not her own, rather a harder, less feminine visage than usual, capped off with an incongruously girlish hairstyle, still colored blue-black. Reaching down, he turned on the hot water, his body rippling back into its familiar shape.

"Um, Akane, you all right in there?" Ranma's voice came from outside of the door, and Akane didn't answer virbally, just opening it and walking out in her new loose white pants and yellow shirt. "How do I look?" She asked, turning in place.

"Like a tomboy," Ranma replied, instantly, and got punched in the shoulder. "Noticed it took a while. Don't worry, ya get used ta the curse eventually, as hard as it is to believe."

"Thanks," Akane said, and as Ranma headed for his room, she looked confused. "I thought we were going out?"

"We are," he responded. "I don't wanna go through the living room, though. Yer ol' man keeps glaring at both of us every time we do."

"Oh, yeah," Akane observed, following her fiance. "So, how are we going to get out?"

"You ever jumped from the second story before?" He asked, curiously.

HR.

She stood on a rock in the midst of a sea of red, what remained of humanity. Nearby, one person lay, his arms spread-eagle, his chest rising and falling slowly as it had for the past seventeen years, and she merely watched, as she had done for a similar timeframe.

When the change came, it took her several minutes to realize it. Though she did not easily get bored, and was even now running several simulations in her head of various outcomes of the third impact, Rei Ayanami had grown indifferent to the outside world.

Now, however, she stepped down off of her rock, walking down the beach where Shinji lay, his face forever staring into the sky. Kneeling next to him, she noted that from the base, his hair was beginning to slowly darken. His eyes had done the same already, going from light to dark brown.

The light blue haired girl sighed and stood. It appeared that Shinji had made his decision, and that instrumentality would not come, at least not this time. There was, of course, a bright side to this, however. Now that the decision had been made, the world would truly begin to rebuild itself.

"I wonder if anyone will talk to me this time?" The girl asked, softly, resting her hand on the perpetually fourteen-year-old's forehead.

END.

Hello, folks.

First off, credit where it's due. This fic was heavily inspired by an old story on the RAAC archives called "Lookalike." It's a pretty funny little oneshot. Also, the plot device for the events was brought to you by TVTropes, whose "Wild Mass Guessing" boards "(Series name here) is actually the world Post-Third-Impact" guesses finally made me decide to really do it.

That, and Jonakhensu, who poked me in the head and said "Start Writing!"

Please, review and tell me if you liked it, hated it, or are deeply confused.


	2. A Good Plan

Episode 2 in the WMG trio, I give you the most annoying of the three WMGs, simply because it takes almost no logic to propose this one, and at least the others have some interesting dimensional implications. But enough griping. I'm sure you'll guess the 'punch line' before I'm finished, but oh well.

When a Good Plan Comes Together.

It was nearly time. Everything had been meticulously laid out, all variables taken into account. It would happen today, and finally, all of the planning would pay off. A small smile appeared on a face as a pigtailed martial artist came jogging down a street, looking a lot neater than usual in a fancy chinese shirt with a gold embroidered dragon coiling up one side of the chest, a small box nestled under one arm.

Turning sharply and jumping across a street without stopping, Ranma Saotome knew that, for once, this was going to go his way. After all, Karma did owe him one, and he'd been working on this for weeks. He strained, doing his best to try and see if anyone was following him, even trying to use his Chi to sense if any of his more annoying rivals had shown up to try and spoil things. So concentrated on this was he, that he didn't notice as he charged straight into a wall of water, his form changing, and her train of thought screeching to a rather grizzly, derailing halt with no survivors.

"Damn it!" She yelled, turning to see the source of the water, and coming face to face with the old lady who was always watering down her sidewalk. The hand that wasn't holding the drenched box clenched spasmodically, and for just a second the pigtailed martial artist entertained the fantasy of launching the bane of her existence into Tomobiki, before she managed to regain control of her temper.

She took a long, calming breath, and turned to continue on her way, deciding that traveling by rooftop would probably be safer. She reassured herself that she could still salvage the plan. All she needed was hot water, and probably a towel. Reaching up, she irritably wiped away the wet hair from in front of her eyes, not really paying attention as she leapt from roof to roof.

She was almost there, it was only three blocks away. No one was around. She, herself, had called in a delivery from the Neko-Hanten to a small house half a city away, and Ukyo was off visiting her father. Nothing would get in her… "Ranma, prepare to die!" Her eye twitched, hard. Landing on a heat vent on the top of a roof, she turned slowly to see Ryoga Hibiki standing on the roof across the street from her, his umbrella raised in a defensive battle stance.

"What'd I do this time, P-chan?" She growled, the expression on her face rather murderous.

Ryoga took no note of the warning signs, pointing the umbrella like a sword. "You know full well what you did, and now I'm going to make you pay!" He shouted, actually having forgotten what had gotten him so angry this time, but knowing that it was probably something evil and worth a pounding.

"And you gotta try and punish me now?" The redhead hissed, irritably.

"Of course I do, what do you want me to do, take a number?" The lost boy snarled.

'Would be nice,' Ranma thought, carefully setting her cargo on the vent and jumping down to the roof itself. "Can we just get this over with already?" she asked, clasping her arms behind her back and swaying back and forth on the balls of her feet. Ryoga didn't respond, roaring in outrage and sending several razor sharp bandannas at his rival, which Ranma twisted around before dashing for the edge of the roof and somersaulting to the ground.

The pig cursed boy was right behind her, crashing into the narrow back street with his umbrella and leaving a crater that would probably keep the city's construction crews busy for days. Unfortunately for him, Ranma had rolled out of the way and through his legs, grabbing one ankle with each arm and pushing forwards. When he tipped backwards, she brought up both feet into the small of his back and sent him flying into a wall, kicking up to her feet in the same movement.

Spinning to face her opponent, the redhead's eyes flicked up to the roof above him for a moment, and then widened. "Damn it, Ryoga!" She cursed, leaping upwards as the black haired boy pulled his head out of the wall, shaking the stone dust out of his eyes. When he'd gotten his bearings and turned around, he saw Ranma standing in the crater his first attack had made, holding something in her hands and shaking.

"Ranma, you're not even paying attention!" he yelled, though as her face came up and their eyes met, for some reason, he wished he hadn't. The rage he saw there was something he'd rarely seen, even from Akane in one of her pervert bashing moods.

"Ryoga…" The pigtailed martial artist said, slowly. "I've been working at the Neko-Hanten and Ucchan's every day for the past month, saving, and planning, and bribing Nabiki…" She held up a small, gleaming object that, when he studied it, the Hibiki boy realized was half of an intricately carved crystal in the shape of a bird of some kind. "I wanted to have ONE normal date… was that so much to ask?" She pocketed the object. "And then the old lady, and you, HAD to show up and ruin it!"

"Ranma, I…" Ryoga briefly thought of denouncing his rival for daring to go on a date with someone other than Akane, but his mouth abruptly snapped shut, nearly entirely out of his control. "I… I'm sorry?" He tried, but knew it hadn't worked as soon as he said it.

"Get lost, you bastard!" The uppercut was covered in roiling, red energy, and its impact was just as hard as its appearance promised. Ryoga's head rang like a bell, and he was pretty sure he'd broken several teeth as he flew through the air. He wondered, for a moment, when he'd hit the top of his arc, as he'd been rising for quite a while, when he started tasting blood. Yup, he'd broken some teeth.

Damn that Ranma, he'd never been able to hit that hard before, and it had been such a cheap shot, trying to make him feel guilty about a stupid date. "Feh, I'll beat you next time, Ran… Oof!" All of the air was knocked out of the lost boy's lungs in a rush as he abruptly impacted back first on something hard. He'd begun his descent during his rant, but hadn't realized he was hitting the ground yet. In fact, the landing seemed far too soft for that, and the platform he was on was veering from side to side as though he were on the deck of a ship in a rough sea. "I hope the bastard didn't kick me out into the middle of the water," he muttered, looking down to see… nothing. He seemed to be suspended in mid-air, his arms spread out and resting on nothing.

The lost boy blinked, slowly raising one hand, and lowering it. It made a soft thump as it hit a position in what still looked like mid-air. Deciding that he would have fallen anyways, he took a chance and started pushing himself to his feet. He made it with little difficulty, though he began getting rather dizzy, as it looked like the world was slowly moving around him.

Cautiously, he walked, feeling ahead on each step to make sure he didn't end up losing whatever it was that let him stand where he was. After about twenty minutes, he'd found out that whatever he was standing on, it was very large. He hadn't come to the edge of it, or even a change in its angle, even though he'd been walking in the same direction, focused on a tall tower in the distance, the whole time.

At this rate, he was going to end up stuck in the sky, or something, and never see Akane or Akari again. He quickly ran through his list of probable causes for strange things to happen. It was a relatively short list, consisting of Ranma's fault, the fault of someone who's out to kill Ranma, or something else.

One thing was for sure, Ranma had been totally enraged when she hit him, and he doubted she could plan this either way, so, though his being here was most definitely her fault, and he'd beat her, or him, up for it later, the invisible platform itself wasn't. It also seemed to be heading away from Nerima, so it probably wasn't here to kill Ranma, which put it in the nebulous 'something else' category. He frowned darkly. With the exception of when he met Akari, 'something else' usually meant embarrassment, like that time he'd ended up spending a week as a three year old.

Bending down and running a hand along the invisible floor, the martial artist noted that it felt like cool steel, though he could feel a slight buzz in his head when in contact with it. Closing his eyes, he extended his Chi into it, noting that very few breaking points were visible, but they were there. Not seeing much else to do, he touched one and infused it with energy.

HR.

Prince Sathar of the Gadarian Empire was having a good day. He had been chosen for his race's conquest of the planet that his flagship was currently cruising over under full cloak, which meant that when he was done, he would be allowed to claim dominion over the place for his family. Granted, it would mean complete sterilization first, but that would be easy once the ship's EM wave emitter was positioned under the planet's focal point, which lay, strangely enough, directly above a large tower the current residents had built. It would only be another few moments before his leisurely cruise would come to an end, and he could start picking out a name for his new kingdom. He was rather fond of Satharia, himself.

The young commander's ruminations over planet names were disturbed as one of his subordinates looked up from a softly beeping station, the frill that ran along their back drawn in, an obvious sign of alarm. "Prince!" The operator said, his voice ringing across the mostly silent bridge. "The hull armor along our dorsal surface is losing cohesion!"

"What? Is someone attacking us?" The prince asked, shooting up in his chair and looking over his own miniature display surfaces. Sure enough, a crawling pool of red was making its way across the sleek lines of the flagship's upper hull.

"No, sir! I can't detect anything!" The opperator responded.

"No one's even locking onto us with a weapon," another crew member confirmed. "but the integrity breach has widened into a hole."

That, Sathar knew, was impossible. The bonded hull of a Gadarian warship could take a meteoroid impact at .99 C, and the beings on this planet hadn't even gotten past fission explosives yet. Still, his instruments did not lie, and he could see the hole now as well, spreading out along the same path as the previous red blotch, which was now apparently running down the structural support members, made of the same material as the hull, that held the ship together. As the first loud creaks and groans echoed through the vessel, its commander cursed. "Jettison the bridge module before whatever that is can reach us, order a complete evacuation!"

All of the crewmen at the stations spread around the bridge began to work frantically, as the red blotch accelerated in speed, and the groaning noises got louder. Abruptly, the bridge lurched violently, as its own emergency engines kicked in, and the monitor at its front switched from the view out of the front of the ship to the module's own cameras, disintegrating hull plating falling from around them as the cloak failed, revealing a half gutted vessel.

HR.

A tumbling body fell clear of a quickly imploding mass of wreckage, a second, larger shape rocketing up into the atmosphere from the same place. From that larger shape, a crackling, frantic message shot into space, warning all who could hear it that a very powerful, and hidden, technology lay on the third planet in this system, and that all who didn't wish to be destroyed, as a battleship of the Gadarian empire had, should stay clear.

An old woman nodded to herself, removing the bowl of a ladle from over her eye. Everything had gone as she had expected, and it hadn't even disturbed Nerima's usual, chaotic routine. Sometimes she wished that her fellows would study her methods. Careful, studied interference, rather than none at all, or as that one man with the extremely loud scarf preferred, unsubtle and direct.

She looked around her small front yard, taking in the sounds of the ward as it wound down, and nodded, reaching down to the small bucket that lay at her feet and pushing a button inset into its handle. Abruptly, the aperture at the top seemed to expand in a way that was hard to explain, and she climbed laboriously inside. About a minute later, the bucket faded out of existence.

HR.

"Hey, look up there!" Ranma followed Akane's pointing finger, as the two reclined on a bench in the middle of the park, watching the night sky. When he finally caught a glimpse of what she had pointed out, he smiled, as he saw a glittering trail sparkling across the sky. "One heck of a meteor shower, huh?"

"Strange, though. It wasn't on the news." The youngest Tendo responded.

Ranma just shrugged, placing his arms behind his head and leaning back. "Well, at least some part of this date went okay." He grumbled.

The blue haired girl sighed. "It was nice, really." She assured him, gripping the perfectly bisected crystalline swan trinket that he'd gotten her. "Besides, with you, something's got to go wrong, and I'm glad it was that minor."

"Yeah, um, thanks." The pigtailed boy muttered, deciding that he'd better take that as a compliment.

"So, wanna do this again some time?" Akane asked, smiling gently over at him.

He took several seconds, thinking over all the time he'd spent as a waitress over the last month to get here, but then looked up at the sky, where the last glimmer of the meteor shower was fading off. "Yeah. That'd be nice."

Akane nodded, before carefully reaching up, grabbing one of Ranma's arms from behind his back and taking the hand.

END.

Author's end note. Yes. To put this into a WMG format: The Ladle lady is a time lady, and the bucket is her TARDIS.

This was mostly written just to say I could, which means it's probably not very good, but I hope someone gets enjoyment out of it.


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